Saturday, August 22, 2015

Just as learning that the Bible isn’t inerrant changed my
perspective on the Bible, one particular book I read stretched me to let
go of previous beliefs about the Bible. Peter Enns’ book The Bible Tells Me So was a game changer for me. In fact, I
would call the book disturbing. Enns, a biblical scholar and professor of
theology, touches on instances of what he calls, “the Bible behaving badly.”

I will add that Enns has been criticized for emphasizing the
human nature of scripture over the divine nature of scripture. In fact, his
approach was so unsettling to the Board at Westminster Theological Seminary where
he taught that they decided to let him go. Having read his book I have to say
that I understand why. It is
unsettling, but deep inside I had to admit that his argument made so much sense
that I simply couldn’t dismiss it.

We’ve all experienced those instances where something we’ve
read in the Bible jars us and we don’t know how to deal with it. Instances of
the Israelites being called on to annihilate the Canaanites always made me cringe.
It depicts a brutal, unmerciful God. I always tried to justify the wrathful
behavior. Enns spends time talking about the
Israelite beliefs and treatment of the Canaanites.

What about the differing accounts of the Israelite Babylonian captivity? Why are they so different? What about that Levitical laws,
intricate, demanding laws that no one could follow to a T. Even those who tout
that the Bible is inerrant and who take the Bible literally, skip over many of
the Levitical laws. What was God thinking when He came up with all of those? Why
is God so kind and loving in some books of the Bible and bi-polar and vengeful
in others? He’s a God to be feared. One wrong step and we’ll be obliterated.

We are told God is unchanging and yet He seems much more approacable in the New Testament. The Old Testament God is
scary. If
Jesus is God’s son, then he and God are one but I never saw Jesus being the
wrathful diety. We did see him get angry, but it was a just anger.

When Christians read about these
incidents of the Bible behaving badly, we either lock it behind a door in our mind and don’t talk about it,
or we wrestle with explaining to others who criticize the Bible trying to
invent explanations that “God’s all just and all knowing and His ways are not
our ways," or some other contrived explanation. We work hard to make the Bible
line up with our expectations. It’s stressful.

For many Christians there are things in the Bible that make us squirm. Enns’ explanations make so much sense.
If we understand how the Bible was written—not as a history book but as documents shaped from individual human perspective and with specific purposes in mind, then
it makes much more sense. That’s how you get different accounts of the Babylonian
captivity.

According to Enns, Christians feel
they need to defend the Bible against criticism but maybe this isn’t the right
approach. Many Christians use the Bible in such a literal and inflexible way
they have turned it into law, much like the Pharisees of Jesus’ time did. It
also leads to cultural cleansing and the “just war” excuse.

If we take the perspective that
there is still good in the Bible but that we shouldn’t make it so binding that we need to allow for errors and that human spin, then we hold to it more
lightly which is a healthier approach. It is when we try to force it on people
and we take it literally that we evolve into judgmental, self-righteous
people.

Accepting Enns' perspective was very
difficult for me at first. It all made great sense but opening the door to the
belief that perhaps only some parts of the Bible are inspired and some parts
are distorted because of the agendas of the writers really challenged me. I
find myself still bouncing back and forth to wanting to believe Enns’
perspective or tossing it out and going back to what I once believed.

To summarize now where I stand on
the Bible I would say it is this:

First, I believe it is well
written but does contain errors.

I believe parts of it are the
inspired word of God but not all. I don’t feel God dictated word for word what
was written down. I believe that fallible humans wrote what they felt was right
but that their human nature and agendas sometimes interfered.

I believe that many people use the
term The Word of God incorrectly. Each instance where the Bible speaks of God’s
word may mean different things dependent on how it translates from the original
language. In some cases The Word is talking about Jesus. In some cases it is
talking about a direct message from God. And there may be still other cases it
may mean something entirely different. People who say the Bible is the Word of
God act like it is an all comprehensive novel that God dictated all at once and
that is simply not the case.

There is much good in the Bible,
but it should not be taken literally. Despite what some Christians hold to, you won’t go to hell if you don’t read it
every day. Jesus is God in the flesh and the lens through which we should view
what God’s will is and what God’s nature is like. If you read a passage that
seems out of sync with God’s nature then question it.

In my next post I will talk about
what I believe about the book of Revelation, one of the most misunderstood
books in the Bible.

Friday, August 7, 2015

We've
looked at how the Bible was written, first passed down via oral tradition and
then eventually penned on parchment by various individuals.

We also
looked at the review process through which various documents were passed and
voted on in order for them to be canonized to give us our present Protestant
Bible,

In
addition, we saw where errors are present for a variety of reasons. After
making this study (this was all part of a Tough Questions book I was working
on) at the conclusion of my book in process, I reached the conclusion that it
is more accurate to say that the scriptures are God-Breathed than to say the
Bible is inerrant.

Those who still hold to the complete inerrancy of the Bible
must either be unaware of its history and the errors that exist, or they choose
to block them out. I must ask why we should we respect the beliefs
of those who stick to the inerrancy argument if they choose to live in
such ignorance? It certainly doesn't lend them much credibility.

Here is
what I originally wrote while concluding my chapter on inerrancy in Tough
Questions.

God-Breathed

The
Bible is over 3,500 years old. It has a history of textual issues as any
translated document would. Despite this fact, it is one of the most accurate
documents ever translated. If someone confronts you saying the Bible is filled
with errors, you might surprise them by agreeing with them. Then you can choose
several errors or discrepancies to talk about and how insignificant these are.

Inconsistencies
can be explained without loss of integrity to the Bible. Rather than saying it
is inerrant, it is more accurate to say it is God-breathed and the inspired
word of God. The Bible remains a solid foundation for our faith.

-----

Having
written those words a little over two years ago, I have to say that I am in
continuation of transformation and refinement and I no longer feel that
even this conclusion is absolutely spot on.

There have been times all
throughout my Christian formation where certain passages in the Bible have
troubled me because they seem so completely out of sync with what Jesus taught and how he responded to people.
At times, especially in the Old Testament, God seems almost bi-polar. One minute He's kind and loving and the next minute He's wiping people off the face of the earth.

In one
story Abraham goes toe to toe with a very patient God trying persuade Him not to destroy the people of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 18:16-33). Little by little He
whittles down the numbers until God agrees to sparing the cities if just 10 righteous people are found.

How
could God be so approachable and merciful in this story and so harsh and
destructive in others. Why would God give such strict and meticulous laws as the Levitical laws? The
10 commandments seem right in sync with what seems reasonable Then come these Levitical laws with so many details and impossible scenarios. They sound so much like the rules the Pharisees placed on the public.

Have you ever noticed how Christians skip over them because they are so overwhelming? God sure was into making things hard. Why are there two
different accounts of the Babylonian captivity? Why are there three different
versions of the story of Christ's birth. You get the idea.

Have
you ever read something in the Bible that really troubles you because it puts
God in such a harsh light? Have you ever read something in one book of
the Bible that seems to contradict something you have read in another
book of the Bible? Have you ever been bothered by depictions of ethnic
cleansing in the Bible that made God seem like a vengeful, hateful God and then tried to reconcile it with Jesus being God's son and how different and loving he seems and yet he says, "I and the father are one?" (John 10:30)

I have, but in order to cope with these seeming disparencies I did what many Christians do, I shut
them behind a door in my mind because they are so troublesome and I don't know
what to do with them. I have heard Christians explain away the behavior in
answers such as this, "God is all wise and all knowing. His ways are
not our ways and He knows best."

Peter
Enns, author of The Bible Tells Me So calls these incidents cases of the Bible
behaving badly. In my next post I will talk more about what I learned from the
book that has rocked me to my core and what I currently believe about the Bible and how we should be using it.